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IMG greed angers Toronto club members

As the image of Pete Sampras flickers into action on the giant TV screen, two voices at my back suddenly turn animated.

We are sitting in the spacious Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club lounge, relaxed and rather peace with the world, with drinks in hand, when the tennis on TV sets the agenda for the babble of words.

"I like this kid," an old voice, but one conveying years of practiced authority.

"You know, Bob, this guy serves a lot like you," said the gentleman sitting across the table.

I barely stopped myself from looking back. I was embarassed, no, outraged, at a 70-year-old being compared to perhaps the greatest player the game has seen.

A long pause. "Oh.. I wish I could finish a rally like that," said the 'authority', after Sampras had just shown the world how to hit a running backhand winner. Somehow, the praise implicit in his being compared to Sampras had not appeared outrageous to the old gent.

Now enters my host, Ron Aldridge, chairman of the Sahara Cup organising committee. He had gone to collect a plug-in for me. "Ashish.. you can't find it..." he had barely begun when the first voice shouted, "Ron, you can see Bob is watching tennis."

Alridge, as can be expected, was taken aback. "Just 10 seconds, I am sure Bob won't mind it," he says. "Bob" does not apparently see fit assuage Aldridge.

"It's a problem here," says Aldridge. "We have 5,000 members in this club. And only 300 are cricket members."

Aldridge is concerned, for there is a fear that this Sahara Cup could be the last held at this small yet picturesque ground.

Last at this venue? "Yes," says Aldridge. "Even though the International Management Group (IMG) and the India and Pakistan boards, the three partners of this event, are committed to organise this event for five years, we at the club have only agreed to stage it for three years."

And what happens to the remaining two years? Aldridge shrugs his shoulders. "The members would have to decide on it."

The club members are scheduled to have a meeting in October and decide on whether the Sahara Cup should be continued at this venue or not.

Most of the members are the likes of Bob and his sycophant. There is so much of ignorance on cricket that in the brochure which the IMG circulated, there is a page on what cricket is all about. This "How To Play Cricket" declares: "When the ball hits the wicket, it is referred to as BOWLED."

And that should give you an idea of how the IMG is promoting, popularising, cricket in this country!

The members' unhappiness is not only with cricket, but extends to the IMG as well -- mainly because the company has refused to share in the lolly. The money earned from ground hoardings is not shared with the Toronto club, for instance.

"The best you can say for them is that they have kept the ground in good condition, and enabled infrastructure like scoreboards to come up. Even the money offered as rental for this ground is peanuts," said a top official.

How much, actually? 100,000 dollars per tournament. "My Porsche cost me 140,000," sneers the member. "Actually, it is pocket change and helps members avoid their unpaid dues."

The IMG has been resisting any increase in ground capacity. And the highest there has been, in terms of numbers, is 5,000. So why doesn't the crowd come? Were we not led to believe that there are as many as 117 recognised clubs in Toronto, who play all weekends of an entire summer, and that hence, cricket already has a base in Toronto?

"The lesser the stands, the more crowded it appears," said this official. "It makes for great TV viewing." It was this obsession with television - for that is where the money is, and money is the name of the game after all - that drove India-Pakistan cricket to this venue.

But now the members are getting wiser. "We know the IMG is making billions. What are we getting? Nothing. It is not fair. We don't want them."

Come October, and this resentment could be expressed in a vote, denying use of the ground for the next two years.